The Belcourt showing is located approximately 160 kilometres east-northeast of Prince George. The showing is 22 kilometres west of the British Columbia–Alberta border, in the Liard Mining Division.
The region is underlain by an assemblage of sedimentary rocks consisting mainly of continental margin and shelf facies rocks. This assemblage was deposited on and to the west of the Ancestral North American craton. These sedimentary rocks, for the most part typical continental shelf slope and basin facies, range in age from Hadrynian to Upper Cretaceous. Structurally these rocks are part of the Foreland thrust and fold belt of the North American Cordillera.
The Belcourt showing comprises sphalerite and barite in dolomitized, porous, bioclastic units of the Mississippian Rundle Group carbonates. Mineralization occurs within 50 metres of the erosional contact with the overlying Belcourt Formation sandstone. The zone occurs over a strike length of 1 kilometre but contains only a few discontinuous showings. The main mineralization occurs as massive interbeds a few centimetres thick and a couple of metres long.
Phosphate is also found within the Belcourt area, in the Sulphur Mountain Formation (Whistler member) and in correlative rocks of the Toad Formation. These phosphate-bearing units have been folded into a series of northwest-trending broad synclines and tight anticlines, which have been modified by thrust faulting. The phosphate manifests in the form of pellets, nodules, phosphate cement, phosphatic fragments or clasts and phosphatized fossil debris. Exploration is focused on finding and delineating sedimentary-style, ‘upwelling-type’ phosphorite deposits (Assessment Report 34629).
Phosphate values of up to 34.7 per cent phosphorus pentoxide over 2 metres have been reported. Other minerals of interest at the Belcourt showing include rare earth elements (yttrium, lanthanum and cerium). Eight samples of high-grade phosphorite were analyzed for rare earth minerals by whole rock analysis. The results indicate anomalous values for certain rare earth elements with a range of 76 to 752 parts per million yttrium, 47.5 to 360 parts per million lanthanum and 45.8 to 173 parts per million cerium and with averages of 438.1 parts per million yttrium, 215.7 parts per million lanthanum and 108.1 parts per million cerium (Assessment Report 34629).
In 2013, an airphoto interpretation study was undertaken to delineate bedding trends of favourable phosphorite horizons. The area investigated extends approximately 127 kilometres, from Meosin Mountain in the southwest to Mount Pallson in the northwest (Assessment Report 34629).